Janteloven

A codification of the unwritten social rules of Scandinavia:

  1. You shall not think that you are special.
  2. You shall not think that you are of the same standing as us.
  3. You shall not think that you are smarter than us.
  4. Don’t fancy yourself as being better than us.
  5. You shall not think that you know more than us.
  6. You shall not think that you are more important than us.
  7. You shall not think that you are good at anything.
  8. You shall not laugh at us.
  9. You shall not think that anyone cares about you.
  10. You shall not think that you can teach us anything.

Though definitely not limited to just those countries. I’m always fascinated talking with Ron and his Filipino buddies and the clear value placed on the group and the community – versus the ‘rugged individualism’ that mutates into cowboy/colonialist here in the States. It was obvious how competitive the U.S. is in the Olympics where there were always throngs chanting ‘U! S! A!’ over and over again – versus other countries where the athletes humbly kicked total ass.

From a great discussion on MeFi.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

2 responses to “Janteloven”

  1. Anders Jacobsen's blog Avatar
    On daring to be different in Norway
    Many foreign countries embrace the fact that kids have different abilities in different subjects; some being sports-talents and getting extra attention for that, others being intellectually stronger and getting their thirst for knowledge quenched in sp…
  2. x Avatar

    In Scandinavia… and in the Netherlands as well.. please have a look at my log, hope you enjoy it…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *